Brian Gillespie

TikTok challenge for Western Care

TWIN sisters Abi and Ava Galvin from Ballina, aged 13, are undertaking a TikTok challenge to raise funds for Western Care.

Apart from their school work, Abi and Ava have spent a lot of their time in quarantine making videos on TikTok and have gone from 60 followers and 774 likes to over 1,600 followers and 33,300 likes on their channel since March.

"Even our granny, Margaret Galvin, is following us on TikTok!" the girls said.

Regarding their fundraising challenge, they added: "Every morning we see our mum Marie, who is a coordinator in Western Care, going to work on the frontline to support people with intellectual disabilities who live independently and are supported by Western Care staff.

"Since the lockdown began life has become super hard for them as they cannot do important little things like going for pots of tea or going shopping. Most of them live in rural locations so having a car is their only lifeline at the moment.

"Western Care does fantastic work for them but they have limited finances for vehicles. We know that some of the cars are nearly 20 years old and there is no money for them to be replaced. So we decided that we would love to do something useful with our TikTok channel to raise money as having transport is so important in Western Care, now more than ever. We have set ourselves a target of €10,000 to at least try and upgrade one vehicle."

Their plan is to undertake a 24-hour TikTok challenge on the June bank holiday weekend, starting at midday on Saturday, May 30, and continuing right through to 12 midday on Sunday, May 31.

"We will do a different TikTok every hour on the hour for 24 hours, non-stop. We know it will be hard to keep going through the night, but we really want to do something to help in this difficult time."

To support the fundraiser, follow their channel and like their videos at @abigalvin on TikTok. You can donate on their Facebook fundraising page (Abi n Ava's 24hr TikTok Challenge for Western Care Association) or on iDonate (www.idonate.ie/24hrTikTokChallenge).